Eco Films

World Write -- an educational charity that produces excellent videos made by volunteers in East London -- invited me to appear on their talk show about environmental movies and emotionalism recently. The three films discussed were The Age of Stupid, An Inconvenient...

Tom Curtis Doesn't Understand the 97% Paper

My post over at the Nottingham University 'Making Science Public' blog has ruffled some feathers. This was caused in no small part by Mike Hulme's intervention: Ben Pile is spot on. The “97% consensus” article is poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly executed....

DECC Distances itself from Davey

Following Ed Davey's somewhat silly comments about the climate debate, I recently submitted an FOI request for more information. From: Ben Pile Sent: 22 June 2013 To: deccfoi Subject: Foi Request - Davey speech 18 June. Dear Sir, On 18 June, Ed Davey made a speech at...

Neil, Nuccitelli at the Nottingham Blog

I have a post up at the Nottingham University/Leverhulme 'Making Science Public' blog, run by Warren Pearce. What’s behind the battle of received wisdoms? Andrew Neil’s interview with Ed Davey on the Sunday Politics show last week caused an eruption of comment. For...

The Madness of the Energy (and Climate) Minister

Ed Davey's comments have been causing a stir this week. First, there is this exchange between Andrew Neil and the Energy Secretary on the Sunday Politics show... It's good to see Davey finally getting a grilling about the basis for the government's policies. And it's...

The Phony "Green Economy"

David Rose has a short article on my report for Roger Helmer MEP on the size of the UK's green economy. But documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the true value of the green economy is actually between only £16.8 billion and £27.9 billion,...

The Global Guardians and the League of Extraordinary Nutjobs

An outbreak of thinking has occurred at the Guardian. In response to George Monbiot's book, Feral: Searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding, Steven Poole observes that the 'pastoral literary genre has long been a solidly bourgeois form of escapism', and...